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Purity
Kayden Anders (née Russel), known publicly as Purity, is an enforcer of Empire Eighty-Eight and Kaiser's right-hand woman as well as his ex-wife. Personality Kayden allegedly didn't believe in the Empire Eighty-Eight's ideology, regardless she was still influenced by her many years under their sway, making snap judgements about people based on their apparent ethnic background. Purity had her own twisted view of morals and went out of her way to enact them. Her heroic crime fighting was mainly limited to minorities. She went on a rampage to retrieve her daughter when she was "stolen" by the authorities. She was willing to let her teammates outright slaughter bystanders to make her point. These may have been some of the reasons why Cherish nicknamed her "the Crusader".Remember eight people were nicknamed (not all necessarily prospective recruits), and Cherish counted Regent as a ninth (but not nicknamed)? The Crusader was Purity, who Jack Slash wanted to find (after the thing with Oni Lee fell through) before he could play his little game with her (going after Aster). - Comment by Wildbow on Plague 12.1 Possibly thinking that despite her outright acts of terrorism she still thought she could cooperate with the authorities. It is unknown how she reacted to their silence. She was an interior decorator in her civilian identity.There were other images as well, showing Max Anders with a gorgeous twenty-something blonde, and Max Anders with an older brunette woman at a coffee shop, their table strewn with what looked like paperwork. I scrolled down to confirm my suspicions, the blonde appeared in another picture with her twin sister. Fenja and Menja. The brunette woman was Purity, according to the email. Far mousier than I might have thought, given the sheer presence she had in costume. Real name, Kayden Anders. Interior decorator. Single mother of one Aster Anders. Purity was promoted to Kaiser's second in command in the same week that Kayden Russel took Max's hand in marriage to become Kayden Anders. Their separation occurred within the same time period as Purity leaving Empire Eighty Eight to apparently strike out on her own. - Excerpt from Buzz 7.4 Relationships Max Anders A major effect on her growing up and was eventually her husband, even when they split up she Aster Anders Cared deeply about her and much of her cognition was based around making the world a safe place for her. Despite almost losing her daughter Kayden continued to be a cape.You're whitewashing Kayden a lot there. She was a bad person. She stood by while a cameraman was murdered. She leveled buildings in an act of terrorism. She cooperated with an asshole like Kaiser, helping him to secure power by acting as his enforcer and right-hand woman. These things took much more precedence in-story over her saying she loved her child. Heck, they took precedence in-character - at one point she leaves her child in the custody of a babysitter so she can attend to her business as a cape. She doesn't quit being a cape to focus on her child- she founds the Pure after the fiasco in Buzz. She's still keeping the company of the Pure when Gray Boy gets her. She had ulterior motives and hopes to do more good in the long run... and it's worth saying that 'good' can be as loaded and mixed a thing as 'bad' - would she have done good? Look at what she called her team and allowed to pass after taking half of E88 under her wing, and infer what she might have done if Kaiser had stepped down. She supported and sheltered absolute monsters even within her contingent of 'the pure'. Crusader, Night, Fog. And beyond that, that long run never came to pass. She might (I'd like to think) be a person with a good portrayal, but that doesn't make her a good person. - reddit comment by Wildbow. Theo Anders Looked after him but was mostly distant. Still, she was the closest he got to a maternal figure. Jack Slash Researched her and targeted her and her family in an attempt to challenge himself.She was the most vulnerable, most dangerous, most desperate person in play, and as he assessed who was active in Brockton Bay he reasoned out the drawback to her power, and decided to test his theory. Kill her family, knowing just what had happened when she nearly had it taken from her before, just when she thought she could live a semblance of a normal life after being outed, challenge himself and challenge her, seeing how she reacted and acted - either a moment of poignant loss as she hit something far below rock bottom, or chaos and destruction, which he's all for. - reddit comment by Wildbow. Appearance Kayden had brown hair and eyes. She was mousy and shorter than average. - Excerpt from Interlude 18.y She was visibly older than Fenja and Menja. As Purity, Kayden didn’t wear a mask, but it wasn’t necessary. With her powers active, her hair and eyes became a radiant white, emanating a light so brilliant it was impossible to look straight at her without getting spots in your eyes.Hive 5.1 The fabric of her plain white costume radiated a soft,Hive 5.1 rippling glow. Her costume also included "pristine" white gloves. She left a white trail behind her as she flew. Abilities and Powers Kayden falls into the category of 'flying artillery' capes. She has the ability to create kinetically charged light, to move through the air at high speeds while generating powerful blasts.Hive 5.1 She moved too fast for anyone among the Brockton Bay heroes but Dauntless or Velocity to catch, and she hit harder than both of them combined. Her power left firefly-like motes of light behind it when used.Buzz 7.10 She could create two curved beams emanating from one hand, creating an expanding double-helix shape that was wider than she was and capable of leveling buildings. She could also create smaller beams, or fire multiple beams at once. Her beams were almost as powerful as Legend's, although not as versatile.Legend was at the head of the pack when it came to being flying artillery. His firepower was on par with Purity's, if not outright surpassing her, and he was far, far more versatile. - Excerpt from Extermination 8.1 It took her a moment to "charge" her beams, energy visibly welling up in her hands. She had an internal supply of energy, which recharged when she basked under special halogen lights in Kaiser's office.He half-turned to type on his computer, and the lights in the office adjusted to a halogen glare. She shut her eyes briefly and basked in the glow, feeling her internal supply of energy recharge. “Max. Thank you for the light.” - Excerpt from Interlude 3.5 (Bonus) Jack Slash noticed that, after periods where there was more sunlight, her powers were stronger, which may suggest that sunlight gives her more power than regular light.Interlude 11b History Background Kayden went out driving for the first time when she was sixteen years old. She got into an accident on a side road and her car rolled off the road and out of sight of anyone passing by. She was trapped inside the vehicle until she began to starve, and then triggered, gaining powers that fed off of and required light.Interlude 8.y Her delirium influenced the trigger event.Lexicon: Is Purity's light a breaker state? I thought it was just a aesthetic effect, given the rest of her doesn't seem to change. Wildbow: Breaker state. Wildbow: She's basically the subtype of breaker that goes 'Turn breaker, gain access to a powerset while in breaker state', but with contingent costs/benefits with holding the form (personal battery, in her case) Wildbow: Her trigger doesn't really work with her powerset, if she's not breaker. Lexicon: The starvation from being trapped, right? Teruzi: she eats liiight FossilLord: As crusader says second hand Lexicon: You keep blowing my mind, man Teruzi: That's, like, no calories. Very jelly. Wildbow: Sun exposure + delirium + starvation + other factors that probably played into phantom enemies for her blaster aspect Wildbow: Plus wanting to escape/go home, of course - Wildbow on IRC, archived on SpaceBattles Kaiser would approach Purity sometime later, after she started going out in costume. With his good looks and his way with words, he convinced her of his way of thinking. At some point, she joined the Empire Eighty-Eight. After working ten years alongside Max, Kayden married him, becoming second-in-command of Empire Eighty-Eight. Eleven months into their marriage, Kayden woke up to who Max really was. She divorced Max and left the Empire, taking their daughter, Aster, with her. Night and Fog left at the same time she did. Kayden became an independent cape who made the ABB a priority target. Three to five times a week, she carried out surgical strikes against the gang's low-level operations; interrupting shipments, beating up dealers and thugs, attacking their places of business and gathering information. She clashed with Lung on four occasions and Oni Lee on two and had forced them to retreat on all but one of those encounters. At one point, Lung set a trap for her, and succeeded in returning the favor; it took her two months to recuperate from all of her injuries. Story Start When Kayden had read about Lung's arrest, she cleared her schedule and went out to clean up the Azn Bad Boys. She failed to get any information as to the recent changes the ABB had gone through and, out of options, sought out Kaiser. She eventually agreed to rejoin the Empire as his second in command on the stipulation that, if a year passed and she wasn't satisfied with his methods, she would own the Empire and he would be her second in command.Interlude 3.5 (Bonus) As a member of Empire Eighty-Eight, Purity led a "sub-group" comprised of Fog, Night, Alabaster and Crusader. Her identity was revealed to the public alongside the rest of Empire-Eighty-Eight,Buzz 7.6 and her daughter, Aster was taken by child protective services.Buzz 7.7 She fought the Undersiders alongside this group.Buzz 7.9Buzz 7.10 When Leviathan came to Brockton Bay, Purity participated in the defense of the City. At one point she blasted the beast and was able to momentarily pin him down.Leviathan slapped the teenage hero down, swiped at one of my swarm-people, then was forced down onto all fours as Purity struck him square between the shoulderblades with a column of light. - Excerpt from Extermination 8.5 Post-Leviathan Following Kaiser's death, Kayden formed a splinter group out of her friends in the Empire, called The Pure. She also started making overtures to the Protectorate trying to forge an alliance to secure the wrecked city but was rebuffed.Sentinel 9.1 She took custody of Theo Anders with the death of his father. She encountered Jack Slash in her apartment.Interlude 11b She helped Hookwolf co-ordinate a Meeting at Crater Lake between all the hero and villain teams to oppose the Nine, using flashes of her light as signals.Plague 12.2 She was among a group led by Hookwolf that attacked the Slaughterhouse Nine while they held Grue hostage in Dolltown. Regent and Genesis led them into attacking another group of the Nine in a different building, in order to save him.Snare 13.8 Post-Slaughterhouse Nine Kayden and the Pure fled Brockton Bay. They trained Theo to defeat Jack Slash, but he didn't trigger. Eventually, Crusader abandoned him, convincing Kayden that it was the only way he would grow strong enough to save the world.Excerpt from Interlude 18.y Post-Timeskip At some point, she reached a temporary accommodation with the PRT that led to her living in an apartment with Aster under constant observation and guard. Two "plain-looking" members of her group, presumably Night and Fog, were there as well.Secondary focuses. Not the kind of targets that Dragon checked on with any regularity. ... A temporary measure had been taken with Purity and her three year old daughter, with observation being provided for her by the PRT, and the feed showed her sitting on the couch in an apartment or hotel room, two very normal, plain looking people standing in the corner of the room with some PRT officers keeping their distance. ... The three year old that Purity held was crying, throwing a tantrum, and the woman looked concerned. Insignificant. The officers had their guns drawn, but that could easily be because the two plain-looking members of Purity's circle had crossed the room to her side, to help handle the shrieking child. - Interlude 26.x Regardless, she and her team were still captured by Gray Boy and trapped in an endless loop.Excerpt from Sting 26.6 Unlike other such victims, Kayden was not continually tortured. Early-Ward The Protectorate successor organization, The Wardens, have been committing resources to freeing people like her from imprisonment.“The Wardens didn’t ask us before they signed off on this, yet they have people devoted to idiotic things like rescuing people from time bubbles and loops. - Excerpt from Interlude 5x II Site Navigation Category:Characters Category:Empire Eighty-Eight Category:Females Category:The Pure Category:Villains Category:Mover Category:Blaster Category:Breaker Category:Point of View Character Category:Anders Family Category:Mothers Category:Worm Characters